How I Am Getting Back Lost Time In My Relationships Affected By Generational Trauma

I am not quite sure how I made the drive back to my apartment from the airport. I held back tears that had been building up inside me for the past several days, knowing that this inevitable day would come. If you asked me earlier in the summer whether or not I would invite this day, I would have said yes, without a doubt. Now, it’s a different story.

I recently moved across the country and my mom graciously offered to help me out, from cleaning out my old place, to the drive across several state lines, to settling in and setting up my new place. Historically, my parents and I have not had the best relationships, with much of the past decade-and-a-half filled with immense tension and anger. It’s been a work-in-progress for the past couple of years to rebuild our relationship and admittedly, the thought of sharing a space with my mom for an extended period of time instilled a lot of fear in me.

However, after spending this time with my mom during this transition, I have to say, I am extremely sad she is leaving. The past is ingrained in who I am and who I will become in the future, though that is not to say that I cannot patch things up and work on relationships. I definitely think I am fortunate to be able to repair my relationship with my parents, especially my mother. We never got along or saw eye-to-eye until this trip, where while we will still have our differences, I have come to appreciate where she comes from and how her experiences shaped who she is today.

Generational trauma is embedded in my present. I took on the burden of a lot of the unresolved hurt my father had from when he was growing up. I kept a lot bottled up inside me and never felt the permission to speak my experiences and speak my truth. This trip is the first time I was able to speak up and share some of the things that I kept bottled up inside, scared that bringing the past and how it affected me would put more of a rift between my mother and I. That was far from the truth. Instead, she apologized and did not realize what a major impact some of her actions had on me in the past. The simple act of being able to open up to my mother is something I will forever treasure. After growing up without having a mother figure in my life, it has taken all my adult years to rekindle this relationship.

I know I am fortunate. I am making up for lost time — years and years of lost time where I yearned for my mother and she wasn’t there. I am sure there will be many more moments we can create together moving forward. I’ll treasure the moments we shared, from laughing over the little things my dogs did to the “cheers” we did with our mini cupcakes and making boomerang videos and taking selfies. My heart is sad to have her leave and yet it is full from knowing that this starts a new chapter in my life, one where I hope to build a relationship that I missed out on as a little girl. Things may not be perfect yet I am happy to begin the healing process now.